The present disclosure relates to a cover opening/closing device open and close a cover turnably supported by an apparatus body and to an image forming apparatus including this.
Some apparatus body (housing) of an electronic device such as an image forming apparatus is provided with a cover opened/closed in replacing a consumable component and in implementing various maintenances.
For instance, there is known a cover opening/closing mechanism including a button movable linearly in a vertical direction with respect to an appearance surface of a cover, a lock member sliding in a direction in parallel with the appearance surface in linkage with the linear movement of the button, a first compression spring returning the button to its initial position, and a second compression spring compressed between the lock member and the cover. The lock member is biased in a direction of being locked by an engage part of the apparatus body by the second compression spring. This cover opening/closing mechanism is configured such that the lock member slides and is unlocked by resisting against a bias force of the first compression spring when the button is depressed by resisting against the bias force of the first compression spring.
However, the abovementioned cover opening/closing mechanism is required to dispose the second compression spring to bias the lock member toward the engage part, incurring enlargement and complication of the mechanism. Due to that, the abovementioned cover opening/closing mechanism has a problem that it cannot be adopted for an electronic device which is required to be downsized.